How Does Vaulty Work?

Vaulty is designed to protect your private photos and videos while giving you full control over where your content lives. It does this without ever sending your files to Vaulty’s servers. Here’s how it works—and what you need to know to keep your files safe.

🔐 What Happens When You Hide a File?

When you add a photo or video to Vaulty:

  1. A secure copy of the file is made and stored on your device in a private format (.vdata).
  2. That copy is saved to the folder:
    Documents/Vaulty/data
  3. The original file is deleted from your gallery and removed from your device’s public media folders.

This ensures your content is protected and no longer visible to other apps or people using your device.

🧱 Where Your Files Are Stored

  • Vaulted files are stored outside of app-specific storage so they remain safe even if Vaulty is uninstalled.
  • Files are renamed and, in many cases, obfuscated to prevent easy identification or access.
  • If Vaulty is uninstalled, the files remain on the device but stay inaccessible to other apps.

🔒 Who Has Access to Your Files?

The Vaulty app on your device has access to your hidden files so it can protect and manage them for you. But the creators of Vaulty do not have access to your content.

  • Vaulty does not upload, view, or store your content on its servers.
  • Your content stays on your device or, optionally, in your own Google Drive if you enable backup.
  • The creators of Vaulty never see or handle your files.

Vaulty is private by design: your content is yours alone.

⚠️ You Are in Control of Your Data

Because Vaulty never sends your files to its servers, you are responsible for making sure they’re safe. If your phone is lost, damaged, or reset, Vaulty cannot recover your hidden files unless:

  • You enabled online backup to Google Drive, or
  • You manually copied the files from Documents/Vaulty before something went wrong

🛡 Recommended: Use Free Google Drive Backup

Vaulty offers free, private backup to your own Google Drive account. Once enabled, Vaulty will:

  • Automatically back up your hidden files
  • Keep them in sync across multiple devices
  • Allow easy recovery if your device is lost or replaced

🔐 You stay in control—Vaulty cannot see or access your Google Drive files.

For more info see how backup works

🔁 Moving to a New Device Without Drive

If you’re not using online backup, you can still move your content manually:

  1. Unhide all files in Vaulty
  2. Transfer them to your new device using USB, SD card, or cloud storage
  3. Re-hide them in Vaulty on the new device

Alternatively, you can manually copy the Documents/Vaulty folder from the old device to the new one using a file manager.

⚠️ Do this before uninstalling Vaulty or resetting your old device, or the files will be lost.

🧠 You’re in Charge

Vaulty gives you real privacy and real ownership over your content. That means we can’t help you recover files if something goes wrong—but it also means your data is never at risk of being accessed by anyone else.

Choose what works best for you:

  • Use online backup for peace of mind
  • Or stay fully offline and make manual backups

Either way, you’re in control.